Corbett signs execution warrant for ’93 murder of Dillsburg teen

Governor Tom Corbett has signed another execution warrant for a man convicted of killing a York County teenager 21 years ago.

Hubert L. Michael Jr., 57, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on September 22 for the kidnapping and first-degree murder of 16-year-old Trista Eng, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

The execution warrant is the fourth signed for Michael. Governor Tom Ridge and Governor Ed Rendell signed execution warrants in 1996 and 2004 and Corbett signed a third execution warrant in 2012. All were stayed during appeals that ultimately were denied by the courts.

“I would urge all of us to keep Trisha Eng’s family in our thoughts and prayers,” Corbett said in a statement. “For more than 20 years the Eng family has had to deal with the results of his abhorrent behavior every day of their lives. It is my hope that today’s action will support the Eng family in taking the next step to put this painful journey behind them.”

Eng was walking along Route 15 from her home to her summer job at a Dillsburg restaurant in July 1993 when she accepted a ride from Michael, who instead drove her to state game lands in Warrington Township and shot her three times before hiding her body in the woods.

Michael, who was out on bail for an unrelated rape charge in Lancaster County, fled Pennsylvania in a rental car 10 days later and was arrested in Utah after five days on the run.

Authorities said he later confessed to his brother that he killed Eng and hid her body in the game lands, His brother and other relatives searched until they found Eng’s decomposed body still dressed in her restaurant uniform.

His explanation for the murder was that he was under so much pressure from the rape charge, he “just lost it,” authorities said.

Michael fled the state a second time in November 1993 when he pretended to be another prisoner and escaped from the Lancaster County Prison. He was captured in New Orleans and returned to Pennsylvania in March 1994.